Hawaii

Beach near our hotel with view of Diamond Head

First day at the beach in Waikiki

Vacation friends from California--Lillianna and Calvin

The kids with my friend, Carol Rowles, after a yummy lunch

Sea turtle coming ashore

Luke helps the turtle guard rope off a safe area

Samoan climbing coconut tree--Chicka chicka boom boom!

Learning to dance the hula

Kids with the fire dancers

African Penguins at the Hilton Hawaiian village

More penguins

Hanauma Bay

Hanauma Bay

The mountain from Lost

  Our time in Hawaii was wonderful.  We stayed at the beautiful Embassy Suites in Waikiki, just a couple of blocks from the Hale Koa, the fabulous military hotel there, and the Hilton Hawaiian Village, which looks like a Japanese City, filled with hundreds of shops and restaurants, as well as really cool animals--penguins, flamingos, brightly colored tropical birds, and sacred ibises.  They had a wonderful breakfast buffet for us every morning, which included miso soup, rice with furikake (a yummy seaweed seasoning to sprinkle on the rice), and a salad bar.  Who ever heard of eating soup and salad for breakfast?!  I tried it, though, and found I really liked it and after a few days, it didn't seem so strange at all.  Many of the guests at the hotel were Japanese.  The kids made friends with the other guests and always seemed to have someone to play with.
   Our first day, we all began waking up around 3 a.m.  I finally got up at 5:15 and went to work out.  We met for breakfast at 6:30, and then the kids played around the pool for an hour or so with Lillianna and Calvin, some new friends they had made at breakfast.  A little later, we headed to the beach to swim and found it quite rocky for wading.  The boys still enjoyed the water and Sarah Kate played in the sand.  After an hour or so, I took the kids down to the Hale Koa to see the hotel where Lance, Samuel and I had spent 9 days when Sam was 7 months old.  Up until this point, he was certain that he remembered the trip, but upon seeing the hotel, realized he didn't remember it at all.  Headed back to our hotel, grabbing some subs on the way and spent the rest of the afternoon at the beautiful rooftop pool.  Went back to the room for afternoon naps, since we'd been awake for 12 hours by that point.  It was nearly impossible to waken the children for dinner and they were all grumpy and wanting to sleep instead.  We finally managed to rouse them and headed to the manager's reception (complimentary appetizers and drinks) followed by dinner at an oceanfront restaurant where you grill your own meat.  That night I called my former neighbor, Carol, whom I hadn't seen in 10 years but now lives on O'ahu.  Made plans to meet her the next day for lunch and shopping.  She wanted to take us to the beach, but the kids had gotten burned that day and we wanted to keep them out of the sun.
     Started the day around 4 a.m. with another early morning workout and counting the minutes until we could go to breakfast.  After stuffing ourselves again and some more playtime around the pool, we headed to the Hilton Hawaiian village to see the penguins and the flamingos.  Met Carol for lunch and headed to the Cheesecake Factory.  She had told me they had the normal menu offerings as well as some great local seafood options.  Being a fan of both seafood and eating local, I was excited to see what they had.  The two options (market price) sounded fabulous, but when I heard they were each $24.95, I said, "Oh, I don't think I want them that much," to which she responded, "Oh, this is my treat, so please order whatever you'd like."  Wow!  How cool!  So I ordered one of the fish dishes--sesame seared ahi tuna over noodles in a sweet hoisin ginger sauce and she ordered the other one--macadamia encrusted ono served with rice.  Carol knew that each fish dish came with 2 pieces of fish and suggested we get both dishes and split them.  So we asked our server to please make one piece of the tuna medium and one piece rare.  Instead of mixed veggies, she wanted just asparagus, and she asked for a whole plate full of lemon and lime slices and a tall glass of ice to go with her San Pellegrino sparkling water.  Finally, someone as high-maintenance as I am.  When I mentioned that, she said she thought she was more high maintenance than I, which is probably right, since Mr. Low Maintenance has really done a number on me.   Luke got his favorite--BBQ chicken pizza with caesar salad, and the other 2 got kids' meals.  We ended our delicious lunch with some cheesecake--chocolate peanut butter for Luke and Sarah Kate and Mango Key Lime (another Hawaiian offering) for Samuel and me.  We ended our afternoon with a little shopping at the International market, where vendors sell lots of jewelry and Hawaiian trinkets.  I was amazed how much Waikiki had changed in the 7 years since I had been there.  There were so many more shops and restaurants than I remembered.  That evening we headed to dinner at Puka Dogs, a Hawaiian sausage/hot dog shop, where you choose your sausage--mild, spicy, hot or super hot, your mustard--I got lilikoi (mustard with passion fruit), and your salsa topping--I think I got mango papaya.  It was delicious except that we were still full from lunch and the kids were about to fall asleep again.
   The next day was Lance's first day off, and the kids slept in until 5!  Woohoo!  We had heard about a beach where we could see some sea turtles, so we headed out to Laniakea Beach on the North Shore to try to see some.  We did see some in the surf, and the boys swam near some of them.  Finally one came ashore and Luke held the rope to block off a safe area for him to be.  It was really cool.  I started getting hungry and decided to head off to find some lunch for us all.  The concierge had told us we'd see shrimp trucks all along the road and to look for Mackey's, which I did.  Well, it was $12/plate, so I decided to find something else.  I stopped at a place in Hale'iwa called Killer Tacos (or something like that) and ordered some burritos--they had a variety of wraps to put them on--flour, whole wheat, spinach and sundried tomato.  I got 2 pulled chicken ones and one fish one (fried mahi) and 2 chicken quesadillas for the little ones.  When I got to the cash register and pulled out my credit card, the cashier said, "Oh, it's cash only."  Huh?!  "Was there a sign?" I asked.  She said yes and pointed to a very small sign by the menu board. Of course, I didn't have enough cash and didn't realize Lance's wallet was in the car, so I spent the next 20 minutes driving around searching for an ATM, which I finally found.  So after my hourlong lunch run, I was finally back at the beach.  We all ate our food, which was, in fact, killer, while sitting on rocks on the beach and headed back to the car.  I had talked to Carol on the way, who told me about a fabulous little ice cream shop in Hale'iwa where we could get some homemade ice cream in unusual Hawaiian flavors.  We found it and ordered chocolate macadamia nut and lilikoi (passion fruit) cheesecake.  Yummy!  Headed back to the hotel to get ready for our Luau at the Hale Koa hotel.
    The Luau started with drinks and a show on the lawn.  We watched a Samoan guy tie a rope around his ankles and literally hop up the trunk of a coconut tree.  I kept thinking, "A told B and B told C, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree.  Chicka chicka boom boom.  Will there be enough room?"  Then, some ladies taught us how to make a dress out of a piece of fabric, using folds, knots, and special ways of wrapping the fabric around the body.  Next, came our hula lesson--Luke, Sarah Kate, and I did our best to learn the moves.  Then, they showed us the pig wrapped in banana leaves that had been roasting all day in the underground pit.  We headed into the covered dining area to find our table and were each served appetizers--lomi lomi salmon (which I thought was pico de gallo--what looked like underripe tomatoes were actually bits of diced salmon), poi (a sour yogurt-like dish made with blue sweet potatoes that we were supposed to eat with our fingers) and some other Hawaiian specialties.  We had booked our tickets late, so our table was in the back.  Then came a plate with a good 16 oz. of meat on it--pulled pork, teriyaki beef skewer, baked chicken thigh, and a piece of fish, rice, a slice of yellow sweet potato, and a fried banana.  During dinner, some of the performers sang some Hawaiian songs.  We were stuffed by the time the dessert came out--coconut cake, and coconut custard, plus chocolate cupcakes for the kids.  While waiting for the real show to begin, the kids ran around on the lawn near our table.
     When the show started, they came back in and headed toward the front to sit on a wall so they could see better.  They had all three been there watching the dinner show.  When I went to check on them a few minutes into the show, the boys were there but Sarah Kate was not.  They hadn't seen her, they said, so Lance and I began to look for her.  I headed down toward the tables in front, trying not to block anyone's view, to see if she had gone down there but did not see her anywhere.  We alerted security and asked them to please make an announcement between acts.  Two sweet Hawaiian children, whose parents were in the show, joined us in our hunt.  The girl began calling me "auntie."  We spent the next 30 minutes looking and praying and worrying until finally they made an announcement.  As the MC said her name and described her outfit, she stood up down in front and began walking toward me.  Praise God!  She had been found.  She had been playing out in the grass and made some new little girlfriends, one of whom had seats down front, with an empty chair just for her!  So Sarah had front row seats and had been enjoying the show.  Thankfully, the boys got to see the whole show.  Lance and I had seen it before 7 years ago, so it was okay that we missed most of it.  We got to see the best part, though, which was the fire dancing.  The boys were completely enthralled as they watched a 17-year-old and then a 10-year-old balance a flaming baton on the soles of their feet and twirl it like a regular baton, tossing it in the air and catching it again.  Both of the young fire dancers were world-champions in their age group.  The kids got a photo with them after the show.
   The next day, we headed to the Hilton Hawaiian Village around 8 to get a good look at the penguins.  I had been going there every day around 6 a.m. and had been seeing 9 or 10 penguins, but when I had taken the kids there before around 10 a.m., we'd only seen one penguin.  It was perfect timing and we spent 30 minutes watching the penguins swim and frolick in the water.  It was great fun.  Then, we headed to the base to meet Carol again and go to her favorite beach.  It poured down rain the first part of the day, so Carol and I sat in a cabana and chatted about health and nutrition while Lance rented a kayak and took the kids out on it with him.  It was finally my turn to go, and it had stopped raining.  He kept trying to teach me how to row the boat, but I finally decided I really didn't care to know how to do it right and let him do the rowing.  Went to a little beachside restaurant for lunch, where they had a Hawaiian buffet--pork BBQ, poke (rare fish), another type of fish, beef, salad bar, rice, pineapple.  It was delicious.  We had planned to go see the fireworks at the Hilton Hawaiian Village that night, but Carol invited us to come to a pu pu party (appetizer party) with the folks on her street that evening.  We decided to do that, forgetting that we'd spend 2 hours in traffic to do so--1 hour back to the hotel to get washed up and change and one hour back to her house on the base.  The traffic in Honolulu is a nightmare (kinda like DC) where it takes you an hour to go 10-15 miles.  Lance and I hung out, met some folks, ate some pu pu while the kids played and played and played.  Headed back for a good night's sleep.
    We decided to spend our last day snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.  Headed out there and marveled at the beauty of that place.  Rented our equipment and waded in.  Sarah Kate didn't like it at all--mask didn't fit and she seemed afraid to try it, so we took turns, Lance and I, taking the boys out while Sarah built sand castles and played in the water.  Saw some neat fish but got a little nervous swimming over the coral reef, as there was less than a foot between it and my belly, and I had heard it was really easy to get an infection if you got scratched.  We enjoyed watching the fish and then headed out for a late lunch at Subway.  Decided to go for a drive around the southern end of O'ahu and saw some incredible mountains, including the green one from the TV show Lost that looked like God had taken his fingers in pulled them down the sides of the mountain, forming deep grooves as He did so.  Stopped at the Pali lookout and the Blowhole, where whales come in the wintertime and water shoots spray up through a hole in the rock, making it look like a whale shooting water.
   While on our way back to Waikiki, we stopped at a farmer's market where a vendor was selling lobster tails from New Zealand.  We found out we could get another vendor to cook them for us.  While the kids and I showered, Lance and Sam headed out to get the lobster and some tropical fruit.  We took our food down to the manager's reception area and found not only appetizers and drinks but a show going on.  We watched children and adults dressed in traditional costume do a variety of Hawaiian dances for us.  It was lots of fun.  The boys got to try out the percussion sticks at the end as well as blowing the conch shell horn.  A wonderful way to end our Hawaiian vacation!